


All Right

by JulyStorms



Series: Though the Stars Walk Backward [3]
Category: Psycho-Pass
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2015-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-04 03:51:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5319371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JulyStorms/pseuds/JulyStorms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The firearm is what he hears first; the dominator comes afterward—too slow: a sluggish reaction to the first shot. And then there is a scream. His spine runs cold with fear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Right

**Author's Note:**

  * For [protectginozasquad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/protectginozasquad/gifts).



> 31\. The way you said “I love you”: in awe, the first time you realized it. Requested by Psycho-pass-mom on Tumblr. I didn't quite follow the prompt, as it's not really 'in awe' but ya know...gotta keep things fresh.
> 
> This is my 100th 'fic on this account! :)

The sound of two guns being fired reaches his ears. Only one is a dominator; the other is a traditional firearm of some kind. Nobuchika isn’t as well-versed in weaponry as he ought to be so he doesn’t know what kind of gun it is by the sound alone, but it’s not as if such a small detail matters.

The firearm is what he hears first; the dominator comes afterward—too slow: a sluggish reaction to the first shot. And then there is a scream.

His spine runs cold with fear.

He’s never run so fast in his entire life, not for anything.

But he knows that voice and the knowledge fills him with a kind of dread that he feels far too often these days. He thinks of his father bleeding out on the floor, and is reminded of all of the times in his life he was too late to help someone who mattered to him. He can’t let it happen again—not to anyone, but especially not to her.

He tells himself that it’s good that Tsunemori is able to scream. It means that she isn’t dead. But his feet feel heavy; it’s almost as if he’s running in slow motion, the world around him not quite stable. It’s hard to convince himself with logic when he’s seen so many illogical things in his line of work. The fear that floods him tries to convince him that he’s just heard the last sound Tsunemori Akane will ever make. He swallows it, pushes it back—tries to stamp it down. There is no room for fear, here.

It takes him too long to find her. Since the Shamballa Float incident there have been more illegal aliens to deal with; Tsunemori hates having to kill them and so rarely does, but they can’t afford to care about lives as she does. It’s not often that criminals have an advantage over the MWPSB, but—

A figure rounds the corner in front of him, eyes wide with panic. Nobuchika doesn’t hesitate with his weapon, knows he can’t afford to—isn’t _willing_ to, not after hearing Tsunemori scream. It echoes in his head as his gun shifts, changes, speaks to him. _Aim carefully and eliminate the target_.

He pulls the trigger before the other man can fumble for his pistol and flings himself back up against the corridor wall to avoid the gore as the man’s body contorts and explodes. He doesn’t even look at it. Sometimes it’s better not to see the reality of Sibyl’s judgment.

A dominator fires from the other side of the warehouse. Nobody screams. The others are fine.

The corridor narrows and dead-ends to a door that is standing partially open, wrenched that way by the man he just killed.

He pushes through it and runs into someone. They stumble back, too slight to withstand his full weight at a dead run. The wall catches them.

It’s Tsunemori. He’d know even if he couldn’t see her face, but he can. Her eyes are wide and startled.

And there’s so much blood his heart almost stops.

Her weapon is half-raise, but then recognition floods her features and she lowers her arm.

“You got him?” she asks, voice strained.

He nods jerkily and holsters his dominator. There’s so much blood. “Tsunemori—”

It’s all he can get out. Just her name. He chokes on the rest: on fear and feelings alike. God, he can’t lose her.

She’s calling Shimotsuki on her wrist-com. “The parking garage is clear.”

“Understood. Warehouse main floor is clear.”

And then her communicator beeps again. Kunizuka’s voice comes on: “This is Hound Two. Second floor is clear.”

“Stay on guard. We’ll meet at the front as planned.”

The wrist-com goes silent.

She hasn’t moved from against the wall and there’s too much blood. Tsunemori watches him for a moment and then looks down at herself and, almost as if seeing the blood for the first time, opens her mouth slightly. She holsters her weapon clumsily and shrugs out of her blazer, one sleeve and then the other; it falls to the floor and lands with a sickening squelching sound. The white shirt underneath it has turned red. He reaches for her, wraps his fingers around her wrist with his good hand—his feeling hand. He doesn’t even realize he’s seeking her pulse until she reaches out to steady him.

She shouldn’t be doing anything for him. He’s fine. He’s—

It’s _her_ that needs help! He fumbles with his own wrist-com, intent on calling for medical support, confused as to why she hadn’t requested it herself already—but she takes his hand in hers, her fingers squeezing his, and pulls his hand away.

“It’s not all mine,” she says.

It’s only partially reassuring. “Then some of it _is_ ,” is his response, tight-lipped and anxious. “There was—I heard a gunshot. Where…?”

Her expression turns concerned. “Ginoza-san—”

She has it all wrong. Why is she concerned for him? She should be concerned for herself!

“Tsunemori, _please_.”

She bites down hard on her lower lip and puts all of her weight on her right leg before she lowers herself to the floor, hand against the wall behind her to steady her descent. He hovers, kneeling down in front of her, uncertain.

It’s her left leg that she pulls forward after a moment. Her hose are torn.

“It’s just a graze,” she tells him, but it’s worse than that. He can see the path the bullet traveled across her calf. The wound is still bleeding, skin at the edges torn and red; it’s deep enough that she must be in pain.

His hands are surprisingly steady as he loosens his tie. Her leg is too slim for a belt to work nicely, but he can knot his tie beneath her knee and that should help. It will be better than nothing.

He does so without a word and carefully peels her ruined hose away from the wound before they can stick to it.

“Where else?” he asks, but he’s looking her over, trying to find the source of all of the rest of her blood.

She’s staring at him, but he’s not sure what her expression means. It could mean anything. “Ginoza-san,” she says, softly, and touches his arm.

He tries not to crumble.

He asks again, voice unsteady: “Where else?”

Her fingers slide up his arm and curl around the back of his elbow. “Ginoza-san,” she says again, “I’m all right.”

Tsunemori’s the one injured and he’s the one who needs reassurance. Typical. Nobuchika hates that he’s so weak for her, but he can’t help but worry. Despite her resilience and strength, she’s as mortal as he is.

But she’s telling the truth. He can tell. It’s in her eyes just like everything else she feels and thinks. She’s not just being brave; she really is all right.

He’s not even thinking about the blood on her clothes when he wraps his arms around her, squeezing too tight. She’s warm and real and he thinks he can feel her trembling a little bit. Or maybe that’s him.

“I’m sorry,” he says, the words tumbling out of his mouth, muffled against the side of her face, against her hair. He doesn’t know what he’s apologizing for. Maybe for always being so goddamn fearful that something will happen to her. Does it bother her that he seems to have such little faith in her abilities? He trusts her more than he’s ever let himself trust anyone. He has more faith in her than in himself.

But she’s still only human.

And he feels it in her breath against his neck and in the way she brings her arms around him, holds him just as tightly as he’s holding her.

He feels dizzy with relief, but his heart still beats too thick in his chest.

She sighs against his skin and suddenly he’s not sure who is holding whom.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. Everything feels surreal except for the space she’s occupying. She’s warm and soft, but the smell of blood mixes with her shampoo and he feels chilled. “I would have been too late,” he tells her, his voice a faint murmur into her hair. “If you’d needed me, I’d have been too late. Tsunemori, I—” He pulls her closer, somehow, tries to bury his face in her hair. His words are little more than a whispered trembling: “I’m sorry. I love you and I’m sorry.”

A minute passes, and then two. He pulls away slowly.

Tsunemori lets him.

“Ginoza-san,” she says, so softly he almost doesn’t hear it. His chest feels as if it’s crumbling.

But either she didn’t hear his confession, or she’s kind enough to pretend as much.

“Are you okay?”

He doesn’t deserve the almost tender tone with which she chooses to speak, and so busies himself with helping her up, with pulling her arm over his shoulder, with hunching over enough that their height difference won’t make moving more difficult for her than it has to be.

Tsunemori reaches down, knuckles brushing lightly against his where his hand rests on her waist. “It’s all right if you’re not,” she tells him, so gently it almost makes him want to cry.

Nobuchika watched his father die right in front of him—watched him die _protecting_ him, even. That had been an appropriate time to cry.

But not now. That he should fall to pieces even though Tsunemori is alive is pathetic. Ridiculous, even. He’s a grown man.

He turns his head away slightly.

“You’re the one that’s injured,” he says, voice raw. He could have lost her: a bullet to the head or to the chest could easily be fatal. What if he’d found her dead on the floor of the parking garage? It trips him up again. For a moment he’s lost in his thoughts, in swirling fears of finding her broken and beyond help. He wishes he didn’t know what a gunshot to the head looked like.

But then her arm wraps around him, fingers clutching his suit jacket.

For some reason, it steadies him.

He takes a deep breath and turns his head again as they start on their way back toward the main entrance. She only stumbles a little, the edge of his tie catching under her shoe. He leans down further and grabs it, loops it around so that it won’t be in the way. “And it’s only made me clumsier.” Her voice is sheepish; he’s sure it’s supposed to be a joke.

“Tsunemori,” he says, quietly, straightening back up again, “I need to apologize.”

“You don’t have to apologize for worrying.”

He’s silent for a moment. Maybe she really didn’t hear. Or maybe she is simply being kind. Either way, she’s giving him an out. He decides to take it.

“I heard the gunshots. And the—and—you screamed. I thought—”

“I had to use the lethal eliminator on him at close range,” she admits, skin coloring under the drying blood on her face. “It was a little jarring.”

“A little?”

She side-eyes him and almost smiles. “Fine, Ginoza-san. Getting a close-up of someone else’s intestines in my face was very jarring.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yes. And you? You never answered my question.”

“You’re not supposed to worry about your enforcers, Inspector.”

She huffs, annoyed with him. “Has that ever stopped me before?”

He falters, thinks of Kagari and his dead father. Then he thinks of Kogami and hopes he stays far away for all of their sakes. The next time he’s supposed to shoot him, he probably won’t be able to avoid it. A troubling thought. “You’re always worrying about everyone else, Tsunemori. You should worry about yourself, too, sometimes.”

“Says Burden-Bearer-san.” She’s teasing, but there’s a spark of truth behind her eyes that he can’t help but acknowledge. She had accused him of always trying to carry all the burdens, recently.

“You’re no better about it than I am,” he tells her. He’s never brought it up because he knows she can’t tell him anything, but…there’s always been something off. She’s always known things he hasn’t. And that knowledge has been a heavy burden for her over the years; he’s not blind, and he’s not stupid. She’s in over her head. She always has been. Yet she keeps it to herself and suffers alone and in silence.

She offers him a smile. “We’re both terrible, then. But isn’t that why we do so well together? If we didn’t worry about each other, we’d have no one looking out for us.”

That’s not true, he thinks. So many people care about her. He’s far from the only one. But her words aren’t entirely untrue, either; nobody worries about her like he does. Protecting her has become the primary focus of his job as an enforcer.

“Thank you, Ginoza-san,” she says, fingers holding onto his jacket at his waist a little tighter, “for always thinking of me.”

“I—” he starts, slightly flustered, “you’re welcome, Tsunemori. Of course.” 

“So now it’s my turn to worry. I really do want to know if you’re okay or not.”

He nearly smiles. “Surely you know by now, Tsunemori…”

“Know what?”

“That if you’re all right, then I am, too.”


End file.
